This study describes the factors that drive competitiveness between local firms and multinational enterprises (MNE) in a retail consumer market of an emerging country. It also seeks to identify the approaches and strategies the competitors consider and adopt to maintain the advantage in the consumer market.The objective of this study is to identify the factors local firms and MNE’s will consider when competing with each other. The study also wants to identify the preferred mode of entry of MNE’s.The study will be a quantitative study where relationships between competitors and their performance in the market are measured.The results revealed that local firms do have a competitive advantage over MNE’s in the retail consumer market due to the local firm’s knowledge of the market, rather than the technology and skills. It’s also clear that MNE have a preferred mode of entry and they chose to compete in the industries where they are stronger than the local firms. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Netzwerke, insbesondere für organisationsübergreifende Innovationsaktivitäten, gewinnen weiter an Bedeutung. Zunehmend kann auch ein Wettbewerb der Netzwerke und Allianzen attestiert werden. Innovationsfähigkeit kann hierbei zum wichtigen Wettbewerbsvorteil werden. Diese Studie gibt Aufschluss über wesentliche Treiber von Innovationsleistung in Netzwerken. Innovationen werden dabei zum einen als marktbezogene Produkt -und Dienstleistungsneuheiten, zum anderen i.S.v. netzwerkinternen neuen Maßnahmen und Prozessen verstanden. Hierzu wurden 757 Manager/Koordinatoren innovationsorientierter Netzwerke angeschrieben. Auf Basis der gewonnenen Daten wird die Wirkung von Innovationsstrategien, Innovationskultur, Wissensaustausch, Kospezialisierung, Führungsstil und Reflexivität auf die Innovationsleistung von Netzwerken aufgezeigt. Die vorliegende Studie ist Teil eines umfangreichen empirischen Forschungsprojekts mit Förderung aus Mitteln des Bundesministeriums für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) und des Europäischen Sozialfonds im Förderschwerpunkt "Innovationsstrategien jenseits traditionellen Managements"

Introduction - Firms nowadays are trying to build a sustainable competitive advantage toensure their long term stay within the market. But as the business environment is rapidlychanging due to the new technology, it makes it difficult for firms to develop a competitiveadvantage. Moreover, SMEs in emerging economies are struggling with how to develop theircapacity to respond to the shift in the business environment. Purpose - The purpose of this study is to adopt Teece’s (2007) framework in the developingcountry to be able to understand and identify the capabilities that an entrepreneur needs tohave to be successful, especially emphasizing how Saffron produces SMEs in Afghanistancan perform the good competition in an unstable environment and provide factors on howentrepreneurs can get a sustainable competitive advantage using the DC framework. Method – This study was carried out by using a qualitative approach with an exploratorynature and a case study research design. The main data was collected by conducting in-depthinterviews with entrepreneurs in the saffron business. To analysis the collected data, the sixstep of thematic analysis method by Barun and Clarke (2016) was used. Findings – In the collected data, there is evidence that indicates that entrepreneurs inemerging markets can use the DC framework to gain and increase their capabilities to dealwith the uncertainty in the business environment and firms need to change theirorganizational structure from centralized to decentralized. Meanwhile, flexibility inoperations and adaptability to changes can afford SMEs with a greater possibility to gain acompetitive advantage in an unstable business environment. Further, while female'sparticipation in the value chain of the economy is more effective compared to males, theirrole in leading businesses remains marginal, therefore, firms cannot gain competitiveadvantage by systematically excluding some resources such a women’s. There is potentialloss of excluding women if international partners would prefer more diversity in products.Human resources is also a capacity of SMEs that is difficult to replicate. Hence, SMEs inemerging markets cannot gain a competitive advantage by workforce gender segregation.

Det finns stora skillnader i hur ekonomiska resurser fördelas i dam- och herridrotten, trots att fördelningen mellan antalet utövare är mer jämnt fördelad mellan män och kvinnor. Sponsring är en stor och betydande del av de ekonomiska resurserna för idrottsverksamheter, likväl går de största sponsringsinsatserna till herridrotten. Det anses dock finnas en kunskapslucka i vilka marknadsfördelar som kan finnas i sponsring av damidrott. Studiens syfte är därför att ta reda på vilka motiv som kan ligga till grund för att företag väljer att sponsra eller att inte sponsra damidrott, vilka marknadsfördelar det kan leda till att sponsra damidrott samt identifiera potentiella utvecklingsområden för sponsring av damidrott. Forskningsdesignen på denna studie är en kvalitativ metod i form av expertintervjuer som utgick från en semistrukturerad intervjuguide. Det framkom att samhällsnytta och exponering är de vanligaste motiven till sponsring av dam- och herridrott. Då det nuförtiden finns ett större krav på företag att ta ett socialt ansvar anses det vara en fördel till damidrotten. På grund av den höga konkurrensen som finns inom herridrotten har det blivit svårare för sponsorer att urskilja sig från andra konkurrenter i det mediebrus som uppstår. Det anses därför vara en fördel för damidrotten i och med en ökad möjlighet för företag att differentiera sig från övriga konkurrenter. Avslutningsvis kom vi fram till att det finns en stor okunskap generellt om sponsring och om sponsring av damidrott. Både hos företag men också hos rättighetsinnehavare, vilket identifieras som ett utvecklingsområde. / There are substantial differences in how financial resources are distributed in the women’s and men’s sport, even though the number of athletes is more equally distributed between men and women. Sponsorship is a large and significant part of how these investments are distributed as the largest sponsorship efforts go to men’s sport. However, we see a knowledge gap in how market benefits can be used in sponsoring women's sports. The purpose of this study is to find out which motives companies have to sponsor or to not sponsor women's sports, discover what market advantages sponsoring women’s sport can lead to, and identify potential development areas for sponsoring women's sports. This is a qualitative study based on semi-structured interviews with experts. The results of this study reveal that CSR and exposure are the most common motives for sponsoring women's and men’s sports. Since there is now a greater pressure on a company to adopt social responsibility, it is considered to be an advantage to women's sports. Due to the high level of competition that exists in men’s sport, it is more difficult for sponsors to differentiate themselves in the marketing clutter. Sponsoring of women’s sport is then considered to be an advantage. Lastly, the findings of this study show that there is a great deal of ignorance in general about sponsorship and the sponsorship of women's sports, both in companies and also in rightsholders, which can be seen as an area of improvement.

Wolbachia is a maternally inherited, endosymbiotic bacterium that infects at least 40% of terrestrial arthropods. As a facultative symbiont in the majority of its hosts, Wolbachia commonly act as a reproductive parasite; however, there are a number of Wolbachia strains that do not cause reproductive manipulations in their hosts and have no apparent fitness enhancement, yet are stably maintained in populations at low to intermediate frequencies. How these strains of Wolbachia persist in nature has been a long-standing question and is still unresolved. One explanation for the persistence of such strains is that they provide a context-dependent fitness advantage to their hosts. In this thesis, I investigate one such strain of Wolbachia, wSuz, which infects the agricultural pest, Drosophila suzukii, also known as spotted wing Drosophila. To explore the possibility that wSuz may be involved in pathogen protection, I screened wild flies for Wolbachia and two naturally occurring RNA viruses, Teise Virus and a recently discovered virus related to Motts Mill Virus. I did not find an association between Wolbachia and virus infection. Additionally, I designed an experiment to test whether Wolbachia increases host fitness at high larval densities. Intriguingly, although there was no effect of density, the frequency of Wolbachia infection changed dramatically in just one generation, but in opposite directions in replicate experiments that were performed a month apart. These results support the hypothesis that Wolbachia frequencies can change quickly across generations and provide some type of condition-dependent benefit. The maintenance of Wolbachia remains a mystery, but my study provides some exciting clues about what conditions may be playing a role. / Graduate / 2022-05-10

In recent years, the aspects of sustainability and environmental friendliness have taken on an increasingly large role in our society and due to climate change and scarcity of resources, green technologies are growing. As the consequence, this ongoing trend has affected the business environment. Companies need to adapt their strategies to a sustainable manner and take advantage of the potential opportunities generated by this change. Considering the impact and importance of Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the global business environment and economic development, this paper has therefore addressed the question of how SMEs can gain a competitive advantage by implementing a green marketing strategy and how far possible advantages can be used for the internationalization of these companies. For this purpose, semi-structured interviews were conducted with five German and Swedish case companies to investigate to what extent they are implementing a green marketing strategy, if they have reached any competitive advantages generated by this strategy, and whether these competitive advantages have contributed to a smoother internationalization process. To answer these questions, the case companies are positioned on the green marketing matrix proposed by Ginsberg and Bloom (2004) which is the basic concept for analyzing the respective strategy, then case studies’ attitudes regarding the aspect of sustainability, competitive advantages raised from implementing a green marketing strategy and their potential impacts on internationalization process are analyzed. According to the empirical findings, the case studies have registered a tremendous change in customers' behavior regarding green behaviors in society, which emphasizes the need to implement a green business strategy. Particularly, applying a green marketing strategy enables companies to achieve several competitive advantages which help them develop an optimal position against competitors and even exploit them in their internationalization process.

Skogsindustrin är beroende av fungerande skogsbilvägar. De ökar lönsamheten i skogsbruket och gör skogen mer tillgänglig. Ett förändrat klimat sätter stor press på skogsbilvägarna och skogsmarkens tillgänglighet. Stora Enso Skog ser ett ökat behov av fler och bättre vägar till följd av klimatförändringar. Studiens syfte var att identifiera incitament för skogsägares investeringsvilja i skogsbilvägar samt utreda hur Stora Enso Skog kan bidra till ett förbättrat skogsbilvägnät. Ökad lönsamhet genom lägre drivningskostnader är det största incitamentet för nybyggnation av skogsbilvägar. Virkesköparen har en viktig roll för att främja vägbyggandet. Nära hälften av skogsägarna önskar sig mer rådgivning angående skogsbilvägar. Branschgemensamma överenskommelser är en förutsättning för ett förbättrat underhåll av befintliga vägar. Stora Enso Skogs bidragande roll bör vara att sprida kunskap och information om skogsbilvägens nytta till privata skogsägare för att på så vis hjälpa sina virkesköpare ute i fält.

The utilization of total quality management (TQM) is advocated by some experts, as a partial remedy to the ills of the healthcare industry. However, some healthcare administrators are not yet sold on TQM. Some healthcare administrators still question the impact of TQM on the operational, financial and strategic health of their institutions. They consider the investment in TQM as unjustifiable because the return on such investment in their mind is questionable. This study illustrates how the constant market share model can be utilized to show the competitive benefits of TQM. Based on the results of this study, it is concluded that the fears of some healthcare administrators are unfounded. Not only that TQM does not compromise organizational effectiveness, but it actually improves it, as it contributes to increasing market share.

Over the past decade, policymakers have promoted marriage as a pathway to improve child outcomes in single-parent households. However, previous research on single mothers who later married in the United States has failed to examine how the structural advantages and disadvantages of race influence post-birth marriages and the advantage they may confer. I investigate how white advantage—the human- and social-capital benefits that come from being a white individual—acts as a resource distributed differently across three couple configurations. I predict that having access to white advantage via a white parent will improve child academic achievement. Using the US Early Childhood Longitudinal Study 1998 (ECLS-K 1998) and the US Early Childhood Longitudinal Study 2011 (ECLS-K 2011), I compare children from white monoracial marriages, white-Hispanic interracial marriages, and Hispanic monoracial marriages. My results suggest that white advantage in the home increases access to critical resources that improve child academic achievement. Additionally, I find further evidence of Hispanic disadvantage as children from Hispanic monoracial marriages score lower on math and reading tests than children from white monoracial marriages, even after accounting for resource and demographic factors.

This research aims to present, analyse and discuss how to sustain a competitive advantage in the Fashion Luxury market throughout a case study of Emerging Fashion Brands. The analysed data determines that considering the customers’ demands, the attributes of the Emerging Fashion Brands and the idiosyncrasy of the Fashion Luxury Market these brands must apply a Differentiation Strategy directed to a focal target group in order to sustain their competitive positions in the market. Furthermore, the findings of the research prove the relevance for Emerging Fashion Brands to identify their innovative capabilities where to design or redefine their Business Models. Also, this research describes a future scenario of the Fashion Luxury Market whereby the identification of the upcoming trends and opportunities are identified. Therefore, a holistic approach of the Fashion Luxury Market is provided in order to help the managerial decision-making.